


Paths Converging

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: When Zenyatta tells Genji he wants to leave the Shambali monastery, Genji has to make a decision.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Genyatta Week 2016, prompt "Crush/Confession".

“Genji, I must speak with you later, when you have a minute.”

Genji sat down the chair he had been working on, fasteining a loose leg, and looked at Zenyatta standing in the doorway to the small stone hut. After almost a year spent with the Shambali monks, and so few human students around, it was normal for him now that he could glean no information about the mood of the people he surrounded himself with from their faces. However, this had greatly sharpened his ability to read body language and today, something very uncommon was in the way Zenyatta held himself. His hands, folded in his lap, seemed to find no rest, and the orbs which usually floated in even harmony in a circle around his neck, twitched and threatened to go out of formation.

“Is something troubling you, master?”

“Finish your work first,” Zenyatta said, which, as it was not a denial, only served to worry Genji further. “Take all the time you need, I do not mean to draw you from it.”

“It’s fine.”

Setting down his tools, Genji beckoned for him to come inside. After a moment’s hesitation, Zenyatta did.

“Please tell me,” Genji added.

He had never seen Zenyatta like this. Usually, he was a pool of serenity that others – Genji foremost – could profit from. It seemed to Genji like Zenyatta was unsure how to put whatever he wanted to say, turning his head to take in the room, even if there didn’t seem to be anything in particular he was interested in, and rearranging his metal fingers in his lap again.

“I am going to leave the monastery,” Zenyatta said, suddenly.

The simple sentence fell on Genji like an avalanche. The monastery had been the only place where he had found peace after years of trouble, rage, self-doubt and pain. It was a place of healing and protection for him, but he also knew that much of that feeling was tied to Zenyatta’s presence. Mondatta was a wise man and many of the Shambali had taught Genji much, but it was Zenyatta who had spent time with him every day, Zenyatta who had had the patience and understanding to help Genji heal his wounds, and who had set him on the right path.

However, if the monastery had done that much for Genji, it had undoubtedly done much more for Zenyatta. He had been among the founding members, he had helped build this place from the ground up, physically and spiritually.

“Why would you leave?” he asked.

“My brother Mondatta and me – we do not see eye to eye. I do respect him, but I have different ideas of how I can apply our philosophy. I am not made to preach and talk at people.” Zenyatta shook his head. “Often, I feel like I know too little of the world to even help them one-on-one, which is what I want to do. This place is my home, but it is time for me to leave or I fear I may become stuck in my routines. I think I can do much more good away from here.” With a slight tilt of his head, he regarded Genji, his tone softening with affection: “And you have made such great strides, my pupil, that I am confident to say that you don’t need me anymore.”

Zenyatta’s reasons were sound. He had an active and curious spirit, it made sense he wanted to see and know more of the world. Also, while Genji had hid himself away here and managed to lick his wounds and rebuild his spirit where Angela Ziegler had done the work for his body, he was not as reliant on Zenyatta as he used to be. 

“I see. I understand your decision,” Genji said. However, even as the words passed his scarred lips, he realised that that did not mean he liked it.

-

It was not that he did not want Zenyatta to have the chance to experience the world in a way he had not been allowed to before, coming straight out of a life of servitude into the monastery. Genji wanted Zenyatta to see everything – the seas and little villages and big cities in all countries, all the places and people, and he could just imagine how excited he would be, how awed by the wonders, and how determined to right the wrongs he would meet. For Zenyatta to leave, Genji told himself again and again, could only be a good thing for both Zenyatta and the world.

But Genji was not happy; selfishness was why he wanted to keep him here, Genji knew, when he looked into himself, for love was selfish and Genji had known he was in love with him for a long time. And though they said you had to let go off what you loved to let it return to you on its own volition, did that still count if you had never quite made clear what you felt, never said that you wanted to be the anchor?

Besides that, these travels, Genji had considered over the days since Zenyatta’s announcement, would be rather perilous in a world that was still not often friendly to omnics, especially not those who, even in a gentle way, insisted on having a soul and a mind of their own. What if he would never see him again at all because something happened to him? The questions swirled in his mind and yet, Genji swallowed them because it seemed egotistical to weigh Zenyatta down with these concerns so shortly before he started on this new road.

Indeed, it was Zenyatta who approached him after a meditation session the next day.

“You have been very uneasy lately,” Zenyatta said. “May I ask why?”

It shouldn’t have surprised him Zenyatta had noticed; the first month he’d spend here, Genji had been so tight-lipped and resistant that Zenyatta basically had had only his own guesswork about Genji’s mood to rely on. Apparently, the talent to read it had stuck.

For a moment, Genji thought about making up a lie, but that was never the way he wanted to communicate with Zenyatta.

“It’s because you are going to leave,” he admitted, sitting down on the steps that led to the middle platform of the temple’s inner sanctum. Around them, a deep chasm gaped, aping the valleys of the mountains next to their high peaks, as Mondatta had once explained to him, and the highs and lows, the good and bad of the soul.

“I really don’t believe that is something that you need to worry about. You are strong enough without me,” Zenyatta said, floating before him.

“But that doesn’t mean that I don’t need you.”

“Is that not the exact outcome of that statement, though?” Zenyatta asked.

“I might not always have need of you as a master, but I think my life will be poorer without your presence,” Genji said, picking his words carefully. “You are not just my teacher, you are also a person I’m very attached to because of who you are.”

Zenyatta folded his hands and adjusted the height of his flight a little so that he was looking Genji in the eye.

“That’s very kind of you to say. I feel the same. I’m going to miss you.”

The earnestness in Zenyatta’s voice made Genji’s heart leap against its synthetic casing.

“I want to go with you,” Genji said, realising it was true the moment the words were out of his mouth. It was not that he wanted to keep Zenyatta from seeing something new, that he wanted him nailed down for Genji’s benefit, he just wanted to stay with him; and if he was there, then he could make sure that Zenyatta was safe from attacks, too.

“But you have been so happy here.”

“And I’m very thankful that I have been taken in by the Shambali, but I have never wanted to spend my whole life in this place.”

Genji knew that if he would make his case to go with Zenyatta, it would only be right to do it honestly; to make sure Zenyatta understood that he was both a teacher, and a friend, and more, that Genji was not just chasing an idle idea. Also, and though it hurt, since he knew this was the most likely possibility, he had to give him the chance to reject him in his advances.

Collecting his courage, Genji stood up and closed in on Zenyatta.

“I also find that my happiness is tied to you, but not for the reasons you think. It has been a long while now that I have felt more for you than just what a student feels for his master.”

Though Zenyatta hesitated, he did not move back to create distance between them.

“You probably think that because I have pointed you in the right direction when you were lost. I seem to unfairly draw fondness that should really be taken to honour your own strength and focus.”

“No,” Genji said, looking straight into the lights of his faceplate. “I might be your student, but I’m not so young that I don’t know the difference. I admire you and I am grateful for what you have done for me. That you are the kind of person who would work tirelessly to safe a lost cause like me draws me to you, yes, but more because it shows me the kind of heart that you have.”

“You were never a lost cause, Genji,” Zenyatta said mildly, his head inclining, looking at their hands. “I too feel more for you than a teacher would, but given that you had come here to find peace, I wanted to introduce nothing to our relationship that might make you wary of my intentions. I only wanted to help.”

The moment Zenyatta told Genji the feelings were reciprocated, Genji wanted to draw him close, but was stopped as he considered what he was supposed to do with him when he had him there. As a human – young and impulsive as he had been –, he would have tipped Zenyatta back and stifled his concerns with a kiss. But Zenyatta did not even have a mouth and Genji would have to unlock his faceplate to uncover his scarred lips, which did not exactly support the spontaneous passion he wanted to convey.

Instead, he took Zenyatta’s other hand, too, and tugged his master’s floating figure towards him, pulling him into a chaste embrace. Zenyatta’s leg unfolded, allowing their bodies to meet.

“Let me go with you. If it doesn’t work out, we can separate. I can return or find my own way – but I am very loath to give you up, master. Besides, I have seen more of the world than you. I think I could make for a useful companion.”

“Even if you had never left your hometown in your life, I would gladly take you with me if that is your wish, Genji.”

Zenyatta’s broad hands cupped his face and he pulled Genji’s head closer until it met his own with a soft _click_ , a gentle noise in the quiet hall of the temple. Suddenly, it didn’t matter he couldn’t kiss Zenyatta to stop their talking because all words had died on Genji’s tongue, anyway, now completely unnecessary.


End file.
